Back in July of this year, we decided that we would give out bottles of homemade mead as gifts for guests at our wedding. We were expecting roughly 100 guests, and so we decided to give out 375 mL bottles which would be filled with two 5 gallon batches of mead.

Seeking to stay within our budget, I searched around for inexpensive places to buy bulk honey that was of very high quality. Living in Utah, there were many options here, but I ultimately went with Miller's Honey which is located not too far from Salt Lake City. They had the best price / lb (including shipping costs) and had a readily available selection of different varieties.

Since shipping is expensive, and the price / lb goes down the more you buy, I decided to buy 120 lbs worth of honey, 60 lbs of orange blossom and 60 lbs of clover blossom. They didn’t hesitate when I asked for 120 lbs of honey, perhaps this is a common request for the country’s largest honey distributor. A few days later I received two heavy UPS packages at my door and wasted no time in starting the first batch of mead.

I had referenced The Complete Meadmaker several times in the past when making mead, so I brought it out again and studied the chapter on yeast, fermentation, and nutrients. These turn out to be the critical players in making good mead (at least in my experience). The mead making process is deceptively simple, and nearly all of the complexity in the first stages comes from ensuring that your yeast cells are happy.

Following advice from the book, I avoided heating the honey in any way and simply mixed the honey with water and then pitched my yeast. The key component to this method is keeping things sanitized, so EVERYTHING that touches the must should be first sanitized. It’s kind of a burden, but well worth the simplicity of avoiding heat. As an added bonus, the mead tends to taste good sooner compared to meads where the must was heated.

In preparing the yeast for pitching (I used a few different types of dry wine yeast) I simply rehydrated in several ounces of 100 F water and pitched about 15 minutes after rehydration, ensuring that the mixture was bubbling rapidly. As for nutrients, I used 5 grams of Fermaid K and 5 grams of yeast hulls in the first batch. The first batch got off to a good start, but after a few days seemed to be slowing a bit. I read that the strain I was using was very sensitive to lack of nitrogen, so I heaped a bunch for DAP in the carboy which resulted in a very violent foaming reaction, and after a few hours a rejuvenated fermentation. For the second two batched, I added the DAP at the start.

The initial specs for the batches were:

Batch(1): Dessert Mead, 17.5 lbs of Orange Blossom, 1.138 OG, 5 Gallons. Batch(2): Dessert Mead, 19 lbs of Clover Blossom, 1.148 OG, 5 Gallons. Batch(3): Dry Mead, 18 lbs of Clover Blossom, 1.112 OG, 6.1 Gallons.

Next time I’ll write about the fermentation stages (happening right now!)